She liked it.

The other day I spent half the day cleaning out and organizing my 9-year old’s bedroom.

She’s in training for Hoarders, something had to be done.

Silly Bandz, Rainbow Loom elastics, books upon books upon books, so many that she could institute her own personal Dewey decimal system. Gobs of Polly Pockets (have you ever stepped barefooted on a Polly Pocket doll? It’s an 8 on a pain scale of 1-10), lone American Girl socks, several broken necklaces, endless supplies of sea glass, 19 acorn caps, several reams of stickers, probably 52 dried out markers, 5 booklights that don’t work, koala bears that cling to pencils, the contents of 17 goodie bags, and Valentines from the last three years of school. This was just the first bin.

Did I mention the number of animals on her bed?

What can I say about my earnest yet life-curious let’s-bring-in-all-my-stuff-for-a-hug kind of girl?

Collector girl.

Adventure girl.

Collector of song lyrics and gum wrapper girl.

Lover of all things animal/nature/theater/the written word girl. Hater of any of the above being passed along or, gasp, thrown away.

So let’s just say I tidied up a bit. Did a furniture re-org. Made some space on her dresser and hung a few pictures. It felt good — it looked even better.

When she came home home from school and walked into her new room, she blurted out, “Wait a minute. Wait. just. a. minute. You redid my room and DIDN’T EVEN ASK ME?”

The fury.

I braced myself. I could handle it. It needed to happen.

She flopped down into the beanbag, her new reading nook, and flashed a giant smile.

“I LOVE IT. This is the nicest room a girl could ever ask for. Thanks, Mom.”

Relief. She liked it.

She paused, looked pensively out the window, thin slats of afternoon sun falling over her hair and face.

“It’s just missing one thing,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Well,” she paused. “A ball pit. I’ve kind of always wanted one. Like, with a bridge — so you can jump into it.”